Traditional Biblical interpretations indicate a period of about 6000
years since creation week. Other interpretations based on radiometric dating suggest that
life has been on earth over half a million times longer. In this article, Dr. R. H. Brown
analyzes some of the scientific data related to radiometric age dating. Of special
interest are the facts that: 1) Inconsistencies exist in several areas, 2) the practice of
dating an organism or geologic event by dating the rocks associated with it may be unsound
since the rocks may be older than the organism or event dated, 3) some radiometric dates
are dependent on the size of particles measured, 4) some sequential series of radiometric
dates showing increase in age with depth in the earth are due to the nature of the process
of ejection from volcanoes and not an increase in age.

This article by Warren H. Johns is a sequel to an article that
appeared in ORIGINS 3:85-96. Here the author pursues further the matter of conflicting
dates obtained by various lines of evidence. The controversy presented in this article
centers around small unique glassy objects called tektites, whose implacement appears to
have occurred less than 6000 years ago according to carbon-14 dating, while other dating
techniques indicate that the same kind of object when found in the ocean appears to have
been placed over one hundred times earlier. Dating of ocean sediments containing these
unique objects by a number of techniques which appear to give consistent results does not
agree with the dating of comparable terrestrial sediments.

In the general science note, Dr. Leonard Brand discusses an example
of a purported error in the Bible and how recent scientific data relate to it. Leviticus
11:6 states that the hare chews the cud, while it is generally believed that this is not
the case. This article reports on some of the more recent findings regarding the digestive
patterns of the hare. Like the cow, it has a fermentation chamber with microorganisms to
digest plant material. The hare and others of its type produce two kinds of fecal pellets;
one kind is reingested and temporarily stored in the stomach until redigestion takes
place, thus increasing the efficiency of food intake. This is quite similar to what goes
on in the cud-chewing animals, like the cow, except that travel of the partially digested
food is outside the body instead of a reverse internal pattern as found in the cow.